The Moonlit Garden

by Bomann, Corina

  But she had slept better than she had for ages. What a story! Gabriel would be delighted to have the diary in his hands. And now she had a lead! Rose Gallway had disappeared because she was no longer called Rose Gallway but Rose de Vries. Perhaps Lilly could find the name somewhere. In any case, she had been the wife of a plantation owner, and someone must know when she died.

  As she had now lost half a day, she took a quick shower and decided that the first thing to do was to contact Verheugen and tell him about the diary.

  A message from him was waiting for her downstairs at the hotel reception desk.

  You’re probably exhausted after our trip yesterday, but I should be delighted if you would come to a small party this evening. The person I told you about has finally returned, and I would very much like to introduce you two.

  Yours sincerely,

  D. V.

  His girlfriend’s back, Lilly thought, and a smile flitted across her face. She really did look forward to meeting this woman.

  Since her honesty was stronger than her self-interest, she took the diary to a copy shop she had seen not far from the hotel. She then took the diary itself to the museum, where she handed it over to the deputy curator, who leafed through it in amazement.

  “This is a valuable document. It’s possible that the Faraday School of Music may approach you with a view to acquiring it,” Lilly said.

  Iza Navis gave her a gentle smile before handing the little book back. “Then please take it to the school with my best wishes. I’m proud that a daughter of our country has connections with England, and perhaps it may give rise to further connections between us.”

  “That’s very generous; thank you very much,” Lilly said in astonishment. Then she had an idea. “Could I perhaps have a look at the newspapers and registers of deaths for the years between 1910 and 1915? The diary has given me a new lead for my search.”

  “Of course. I’ll have the documents fetched for you,” the deputy curator replied. She led Lilly to the door of the reading room.

  At first Lilly was a little overwhelmed by the heap of papers placed on the desk by an assistant, but her curiosity was soon aroused. She had the feeling that Rose’s mystery was still missing a piece of the puzzle. Perhaps it would lie somewhere in these pages.

  As she leafed through, she couldn’t stop thinking about Helen. Had she discovered who her mother was? There had been no mention in the diary of whether Rose had told her. Lilly could imagine the bewilderment such a discovery could have caused her.

  Although Lilly could not understand the meaning of the Dutch articles in the newspapers, she finally came across a picture that spoke for itself.

  Aardbeving, the caption read. Earthquake. The photo showed collapsed houses and upended cranes. People gazed with shocked expressions at the sea of rubble. Lilly looked for a date and finally found it: June 6, 1910—only a few months after Rose had found Helen.

  She suddenly felt uneasy. She skimmed through the foreign words, some of which were similar to the familiar German. No name. She turned the page feverishly, looking for death notices or the like. There were a few, but no Rose de Vries. Then she came across a long list of names. A list of victims.

  She felt a dreadful tingling inside. Fearfully, she ran her finger down the list. They were mainly Dutch and local names, but there were a few English ones.

  “Oh my God!” she said suddenly, pressing her hand to her mouth.

  There it was. Rose de Vries, wife of Johan de Vries.

  She had to lean back when she saw it. Rose had died in the major earthquake. Had she been on her way to visit her daughter? Had Helen been her final thought before she was struck by falling debris and killed?

  Tears sprang to Lilly’s eyes. Not only because of Rose’s tragic end, but because of the life she had led. Could any individual have had such bad luck?

  When her tears had dried up, she felt a little relieved and almost happy. Gabriel came back into her mind. He would be absolutely delighted to hear the solution to the mystery of Rose Gallway and her connection with Helen Carter. She looked forward to seeing his eyes light up, to watching the smile spread across his face. She missed him so much! Almost more than Ellen.

  After turning a few more pages, she finally found Rose’s obituary. Her husband may have had to do without announcing the wedding publicly, but his lengthy report of the loss of his wife would seem to indicate how much he had loved Rose. Had he ever known that her heart really belonged to another?

  Lilly eventually left the museum with copies of the article about the earthquake, the list of victims, and the obituary, which she would ask Verheugen to translate for her. In the bright sunlight that was breaking through the thick clouds, her melancholy smile soon turned to a joyful one. Perhaps Rose could now rest in peace, she thought. Even if I never get to know why the violin found its way to me, I can live with that, now that I know what happened to its owners.

  In the evening Lilly arrived at the address Verheugen had given her. She felt a little uneasy. She had not been able to rid herself of the feeling that he was more interested in her than she would have liked. What if his message was merely a pretext? No, that’s ridiculous, she told herself. A man who wears his heart on his sleeve like he does wouldn’t need that kind of pretense.

  From quite a distance away she could hear the partygoers, which triggered her inhibitions. She wondered if these people really would welcome her. How would she explain to whoever opened the door that Verheugen was expecting her? Fortunately he was the one who answered.

  “So, did you sleep well?” he asked with a broad smile as he invited her in. “When I asked for you at the hotel, they said the ‘Please Do Not Disturb’ sign was still hanging on your door. As I’m a man who goes in for positive thinking, I didn’t immediately assume that anything had happened to you but imagined that you were simply tired.”

  “That’s exactly how it was.” Lilly smiled and followed him past a number of other guests into the house. “I sat there reading a document for a very long time last night.”

  “I hope you found it worthwhile.”

  “I certainly did. And I went back to the museum today, where I made an amazing discovery—Rose Gallway had a daughter, Helen Carter, who also went on to become a famous violinist. I’ll tell you about it later if you like.”

  “That’s an offer I’ll happily take you up on,” Verheugen replied. “But first I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

  He excused himself from her and approached a group of men. He spoke briefly with one of them, then returned with him. He was a very handsome, muscular man with black hair and dark brown eyes.

  “May I introduce you? This is Setiawan, my partner. Setiawan, this is my new friend, Lilly Kaiser.”

  Lilly raised her eyebrows in surprise and was pleased that her rational mind responded before her reaction could be misunderstood.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” the man replied.

  “Setiawan works for a large computer firm and delivers seminars throughout the country.”

  Verheugen smiled proudly, and his partner nodded a little shyly.

  “That sounds like a job with a lot of responsibility,” she said. “Unfortunately I’m not very good with computers, though I need to know a certain amount. Until recently I never thought I’d need one for my shop.”

  “I believe I could advise you if you like,” Setiawan replied. “But first you should get something to eat and meet a few people.”

  “Setiawan is Minangkabau,” Verheugen explained to Lilly later, when he joined her after they’d had some food. He smiled at his boyfriend, who had turned to him and looked as though he was silently asking him for an excuse to leave the other men. “I met him ten years ago while here on vacation, and it was love at first sight.”

  “You’re very lucky,” Lilly replied a little wistfully. “It’s difficult to find someone who loves you and you can love them back.”

  �
��Do you not have anyone like that?”

  “Yes, maybe I do. But somehow . . . I still think about my husband a lot, and I don’t feel as ready for a new relationship as I’d like.”

  “Just because you enter into a new relationship doesn’t mean you need to forget your husband—far from it. He would surely give you his blessing for a new relationship.”

  “I know, but even so . . . ”

  “You should always follow your heart. Look at me and Setiawan. For a while we kept our relationship a secret from fear of what his family would say, but I was made completely welcome by them. In Aceh there are some radical factions who would like to make homosexuality a punishable offense, but it’s accepted in most parts of the country. I believe that things often make us more afraid than they should. So go back to your new man and give it a go. You may be surprised at how easy it is.”

  Lilly nodded and lost herself in thought for a few moments.

  “Setiawan is visiting his sister’s family here and wants to go to his home village, where the rest of the family live. If you like, and have the time, we’d be pleased to take you with us so you can see the traditional houses firsthand.”

  “That would be lovely, but I’ve only got two more days here.”

  “No problem. I’ll bring you back in good time. You simply must see these villages!”

  Lilly nodded enthusiastically.

  “A friend in England discovered that Rose Gallway herself was half Minangkabau. That means her daughter was a quarter.”

  She still found it difficult to believe that Helen was Rose’s child and that Rose had really succeeded in finding her.

  “Perhaps both women had a claim to an inheritance,” Verheugen said. “Property is passed down the maternal line—provided there are any descendants, that is.”

  “There aren’t, unfortunately,” Lilly replied a little sadly. “Helen’s ship was attacked, and she was killed with her family.”

  “That’s really sad.” Verheugen was clearly moved. “Do you know which village they belonged to, at least? It would make a wonderful end to your journey if you could see the village Rose’s mother came from.”

  “Yes, I found out that the village is called Magek.”

  “That can’t be true! Setiawan is also from Magek—his sisters, his mother, even his grandmother live there! Perhaps people in the village know of the two women.”

  Lilly shook her head. “I doubt it. Rose didn’t think much of adat. She didn’t want to step into the shoes of her forebears.”

  But perhaps they’ll know of Adit, she thought. She did go back to the village, after all. Perhaps there will even be some relatives who can tell me a bit about her.

  “Magek is a good day’s drive away from here, so we should leave as soon as possible,” Verheugen continued. “Or did you have plans for tomorrow?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Do you want to see the village?”

  “But won’t your partner mind?”

  “He’d be delighted to show you around. His relatives will be so pleased to see him again. He can only go twice a year because of his business commitments.”

  “Are you sure I won’t be taking up too much of your time? Perhaps you should ask Setiawan first.”

  “I know what he’ll say,” Verheugen replied with a broad smile. “He’ll say he’d be happy to show you his village and that people there will make you very welcome.”

  Lilly hardly slept a wink that night from excitement and anticipation. Fleeting images of the previous night merged with what she had found out about Rose Gallway and Helen Carter, and she could hardly believe all she had discovered in such a short time.

  When morning came, she rose and sat by the window, watching the city gradually come to life. What would she find in the jungle? Would there be a “moonlit garden” there?

  By the time Verheugen and Setiawan arrived outside the hotel in their car, she had already been sitting in the lobby for two hours, rereading the copies that she no longer needed.

  “Here, have these,” she said to Verheugen, handing him the pages. “This is the diary I told you about yesterday. And copies of the articles about the earthquake.”

  The evening before, she had not only told him about the earthquake and Rose’s death but, full of guilt, had also told him that she had taken something from the governor’s house without showing it to him. Verheugen had raised his eyebrows, but his astonishment was soon forgotten as Lilly told him the story of the diary and that she had been given it to keep by the museum’s curator.

  “I assume you need my help to translate the article and the obituary,” Verheugen said.

  “Yes, that would be very kind—but only if it’s no trouble.”

  As they spoke, it occurred to Lilly again that she was still waiting for news from the man who was supposed to be examining the sheet music for a code. If anything had turned up, Ellen would surely have let her know. But what secret—if any—could the music be hiding?

  “Trouble?” Verheugen laughed out loud. “You must know me well enough by now. It’s no trouble; it’s fun.” He gave her a wink. “You must have thought I was crazy at first, didn’t you?”

  Lilly smiled playfully as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Only a little. But in truth, I’m so pleased I’ve met you.”

  A little later they were on their way into the jungle. The roads were pretty good, although every now and then they had to negotiate some rutted track that shook them around. After a few hours’ drive, they finally reached Magek, which lay in the heart of the mountains, just behind the country’s second-highest mountain, Gunung Singgalang.

  The village in the middle of the jungle looked like something straight out of a fairy tale. Large houses crowned with buffalo horns rose out of their green surroundings, painted in different colors to indicate different families.

  Completely enchanted, Lilly looked around in wonder at the buildings as well as the plants that flourished in abundance here and would surely make this a botanist’s paradise.

  Setiawan was given a very warm welcome by his family, as if he had been away for years.

  “A Minangkabau man’s standing is increased in the eyes of his family if he spends a lot of time in rantau, abroad. I’m sure that one day they’ll give Setiawan the title of Datuk and make him the family’s spokesman. At the moment his uncle still holds that position, but as you can see, Setiawan is very popular.”

  “Does he want the title?”

  “Of course! Being Datuk means that you represent your family’s interests publicly. It’s a very great honor for the men here, one which doesn’t exclude a computer expert, especially since it wouldn’t affect his work in the slightest.”

  After all Setiawan’s relatives had greeted him warmly, and finally also Verheugen, they introduced Lilly. Some of the women spoke English very well, and she discovered that some of them had also studied at the university. Lilly did not know how it would have been a hundred years ago, but she sensed that Rose’s fear of the Minangkabau had been unfounded. Her family group would surely have taken her in and allowed her and her child to live together among them.

  Lilly was finally also taken to see the headwoman, a very old woman who was introduced to her as Indah. Her clothes were very colorful, and to celebrate the special day, she and many of the women were wearing headdresses that, like the houses, resembled buffalo horns—although these had less sweeping curves and were formed from fine rolled fabric.

  The woman eagerly asked about the reason for her trip, and Lilly told her that she was trying to trace two women who also had their origins in this village. She talked about Rose and Helen, but soon became aware that their names did not mean much to the people.

  “Could you ask them, please, if they knew a woman called Adit? She was Rose’s mother, who returned to the village.”

  Setiawan, who was acting as interpreter, nodded and asked the elderly woman. She inclined her head briefly, then smiled and said something.

&nb
sp; “It seems that Indah does know of her. She says that the elder Adit was ruling the village at the time she was born. She must have been in her late seventies at the time.”

  Lilly felt her cheeks begin to glow. “That’s wonderful! Could you please ask her what Adit was like? Why she came back to the village?”

  In answer to her question Lilly found out that Adit had been a very strict but good headwoman, although it had taken a long time to persuade her to accept her obligations. But once she finally did, she was very conscientious and took great care to ensure that her tribe’s fortunes increased.

  “It was said that she went on a journey to London to look for her granddaughter,” Setiawan said. “She found her, too, but just like she herself had once done, the young woman refused to go with her. But Adit later received letters from her in which her granddaughter promised to come to her. Unfortunately it didn’t come to pass, because she and her family were killed during the war.”

  At last Lilly had found the connection with the information that Gabriel had already discovered about Helen Carter—the reason why the musician, who lived in London, had wanted to travel to Sumatra was Rose’s mother. The circle was complete, and Lilly was now certain that Helen had known who her mother was.

  Later, Lilly stood three terraces above the garden and recalled the melody of “The Moonlit Garden.” If Rose had composed the piece, she could only have had this place in mind.

  The garden before her was not the work of human hands like the one at the governor’s house. Here, nature herself had achieved a perfect balance. This garden had trees and shrubs, flowers and grasses, and was radiant with all possible colors. Not even a fairy garden in a legend could have been more beautiful.

  How often had Rose stood here and gazed out over it? How often had she walked among the flowers? It was such a shame that Adit was dead and Lilly couldn’t tell her about Rose. At that moment Lilly felt remarkably close to her.

  Perhaps I should come back and see the garden in the moonlight, she thought, and took a few photos so she could show Ellen how beautiful it was.